Trident Conversion Remains On Target

Navy Refitting Cold War-era Submarines For New Uses

PORTSMOUTH — After nearly three decades of working on Navy attack submarines at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Steve Bisbing knew his new job would be no small task.

On paper, the proposition looked easy enough. Take an old Trident submarine -- the Navy's underwater doomsday machines from the Cold War equipped with a couple of dozen multiple-warheaded nuclear missiles -- and convert them into portable launching ships for special forces, Tomahawks and whatever else the military can dream up.

But the work gets done on the cold steel in the waterfront dry dock, not in an office on an engineer's design table. And with many Navy submarine projects lately, when the welding started, so did the price increases.

With a little less than half of the work on the old Trident submarine USS Florida completed, though, Norfolk Naval Shipyard officials say they remain on budget and on time.

Yard officials say they have been able to keep the program on course by keeping the work in sharp focus -- from the preliminary scouting missions to gauge the sub and the work to the bigger picture appreciation of the job itself.

"Only a handful of people in the Navy yard have been able to work on this class of boat," said Bisbing, a foreman for the project. "They realize the importance of the outcome of this job. To be a part of this is important to all of them."

It is to the Navy, too.

The overall task is to refuel and convert four Trident subs -- half the work in Portsmouth and half in Puget Sound -- at a cost of nearly $1 billion each, which includes research, development and other costs, according to the Congressional Research Service, or CRS.

That's nearly twice the amount that Navy officials estimated the job would cost about five years ago, according to Ron O'Rourke, the CRS analyst who tracks Navy ship programs. Now that the budgeting is done and the work started, O'Rourke said, it appears that the yards have been meeting the cost and time schedules. The ship is supposed to hit water again next year.

It's worth the cost, Navy officials say. The Trident's mission was to run silent, deep and unobserved with tubes full of nuclear missiles meant to be fired in a World War III nightmare scenario. That mission has come into question with the end of the Cold War.

Instead of scrapping some of the older submarines, though, the Navy came up with the conversion idea. Take out the missiles and related equipment and fill the silos with special forces gear and non-nuclear Tomahawks.

The Navy has held up the new submarine, redesignated SSGN, as the poster ship for transformation, a military buzzword for finding better ways to make the nation's forces more adaptable.

When the Norfolk Naval Shipyard got the job, it quickly teamed up with the Puget Sound yard, where work on another Trident already had begun.

"We figured out that we all would have to put our heads together," said Jim Stevens, the project superintendent at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard.

The yards are giving each other tips, and a friendly competition between the two is keeping them on their toes.

Before the Florida arrived in Portsmouth, naval yard teams went to survey the warship. They talked to sailors to find out what parts of the ship needed special attention.

The naval yard is used to working on attack submarines, which is a little like wrestling in a closet compared to the spacious room of working in the larger spaces of the Tridents. The bigger subs also have special access areas that make it even easier to do some of the refueling and maintenance work.

But attack subs don't have nuclear missile silos -- and that conversion work has to be done just right. It's the heart of the transformational aspect of the submarine.

To make it even trickier, the Navy is handling the first part of the job, while about 300 workers from General Dynamics Electric Boat in Groton, Conn., will descend on Portsmouth late this year for the next phase.

"We're doing the removal and Electric Boat is doing the installation," Stevens said.

Add to that more than 200 sailors still training, standing watch and completing other duties and the Florida becomes a bit of a test bed for industrial human relations.

"It's amazing to see all of them working together so well," said Vice Adm. Kirkland H. Donald, commander of Naval Submarine Forces, who recently visited the yard.

The only uncooperative and unforeseen element so far was Hurricane Isabel. "That set us back a month," Stevens said.

Still, he said, the ship will be ready on time.

- Michael Fabey can be reached at 247-4965 or by e-mail at mfabey@dailypress.com